


Sublimation

by aanau



Series: percy jackson the writer [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Post-Battle of Manhattan, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Writer!Percy, based on the headcanon that percy writes, outside of the book events, since we have little info on percys daily life and hobbies, this is technically canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25553488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aanau/pseuds/aanau
Summary: After the Battle of Manhattan, Percy has trouble putting his experience to paper, despite his love of writing and knowing how therapeutic it has been for him in the past to do so.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Series: percy jackson the writer [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1851718
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	Sublimation

**Author's Note:**

> I like the idea that Percy likes writing (taking after his mom), and the books are more or less his actual diaries. On my reread I realized what an unreliable narrator Percy actually is. That maybe the demigod world, while still having funny elements of adapting to the modern world, isn't actually as hilarious as the books make it seem, and Percy just exaggerates the funny parts as a way of recontextualizing his trauma, as a cognitive processing and restructuring method.

Coming back home after an eventful summer was usually a shock to Percy’s system, but never did the icy water submerge him completely like it did when the summer of the Battle of Manhattan came to an end.

He couldn’t adjust to being home as easily. Everything felt changed. He felt changed. And that was both good and bad. The good was dating Annabeth, and having peace of mind knowing the prophecy he’d been preparing for for four years had passed. The bad was the amount of demigod deaths that plagued him and the grief he finally had time to feel, the scenes that replayed behind his eyes, and the fight-or-flight response that couldn’t seem to temper despite no monster being in the vicinity.

His notebook called to him every night when he was kept awake by nightmares. He could write it out, he knew. It always helped him. Like the weight of the sky being lifted from his shoulders _(he loved writing funny and ironic analogies like that, like an inside joke, and the memory of holding up the sky gets a chuckle out of him because of it, and maybe that’s all he needed to feel okay)_ , putting his experiences down on paper was a relief. Recounting and exaggerating the sillier details of his adventures _(the Minotaur with his collection of demigod beads tied around his bloody battle ax, the memory of his claws grasped around his mother’s throat as they stared each other down from opposite ends of the Williamsburg Bridge...but he was wearing some really nice Fruit-of-the-Loom tighty whities and the detail got another chuckle)_ helped him turn traumatic memories that paralyzed him into something he could remember just as something that happened, that he got through, without feeling so overwhelmed. It helped him move on.

But the blank page’s stare was intimidating, and he found himself trying to stare right back because no way should Percy Jackson, hero of Olympus, be nervous about a wide-ruled compost _(thanks Grover)_ notebook page.

His mom would tell him to just start with one word at a time, and soon it will all start flowing. As the son of the sea god, he was a master at flow. The flow would come. He just had to jump into the stream. And it starts with dipping the toes.

So his pen touched the paper, and the flow did not happen, not for several days. And like some bad plumbing _(even the Supreme Lord of the Bathroom struggled sometimes)_ he felt totally backed up, or like everything that should be on that page already was nesting inside of him and feeding on his innards and any minute all of it would be spilling out of him. No matter the analogy, it was going to end up gross.

His mom, Annabeth, and even Paul kept egging him on to write, knowing he’d feel so much better once he did. But that just put more pressure on him, because the fix was so simple and how pathetic could he be to keep wallowing in this fog of grief and depression and panic when he knows what he had to do to just make sense of it all?

How many angry outbursts at his parents for the stupidest things would it take? How many panic attacks because his mind and body were now hardwired for dealing with the life-threatening, but only had a homework assignment to assign the reaction to? How many visions of fallen demigods watching him live when they had to die and seeing him have the nerve to be miserable did he have to face before he finally had the strength to spill his silly teen angst into his silly little diary?

A week passed before it finally happened. He and Annabeth went on a date, their first real, normal person date after mostly talking over IM. They went to Central Park. It was fun. It felt right, being together like that, like a normal romantic couple having a normal date. No monsters, no discussions of upcoming wars, no prophecies. Being together in any way felt right, regardless of the danger levels, but it was shocking to both of them how right normal felt.

And maybe that was what he needed for the push. That, and the wise words from some carriage horses with heavy New York accents.

_Sometimes people run up to me and spook me and kids get grabby and loud and tourists crowd me for pictures but I make the humans happy and I get sugar cubes at the end of it. Life isn’t perfect but there’s something good in store for everyone. Got any sugar cubes?_

Life being imperfect felt like the biggest understatement for Percy, but the sentiment still rang true when he settled in bed that night and started thinking about how he felt around Annabeth. He’d do anything for her, face anything with her, and he has and he will. His heart felt full and his stomach had butterflies. He felt compelled to write about their date so he sat at his desk and opened the notebook to that same void of a page.

His mind did a one-eighty before the pen hit the paper, and he realized he wanted this baggage off of him so he could run freely into his future with Annabeth. He just needed to unpack one bag at a time. His pen scratched messily his first entry:

_The end of the world started when a pegasus landed on the hood of my car._

**Author's Note:**

> my original headcanon post: https://aanau.tumblr.com/post/624758917566709760
> 
> I have a few more ficlet ideas of this headcanon, so this is going to be part of a series.


End file.
